Talk:Vocal Majority

Where to see them
See them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLFZxAeoD7M&NR=1 (Vocal Majority at 2006 Barbershop Harmony Society International Chorus Finals)

Inappropriate tone / advert
I have tagged this article as "inappropriate tone" (=informality). I would have merely brought it up on this Talk page, but the Talk page was completely unused, so I wanted to be sure to catch the attention of someone who could do some work on the article (= not me).

And, as I write up this explanation, I see that I'm going to have to tag it for "advert" as well, because many of the instances are not only overly informal but are very POV.

Okay, I'm moving the tag to the "History" section, because that seems to be the primary offender.

Here is a partial list of offending instances of both informality and POV (sorry, I don't have time to scour for a complete list):
 * "Not one of the 12 (spell it: "twelve") men... could have imagined..."
 * "Born to compete,..."
 * "...a return to the next year's International swan song performance..." (is this informal, or does it just need to be explained what the heck this means)
 * "...a heart-breaking loss to the Louisville Thoroughbreds..."
 * But, see, the subsequent Clancy quote is terrific, and it gets the point across in an NPOV way; so let the quote speak for itself rather than making judgements like "heart-breaking loss", etc.
 * "Relationships...have been remarkable, but undoubtedly... have stood above..."
 * "...the wonderful bond between..."
 * "...has tirelessly promoted..."
 * "No chorus could have a better friend than Ron Chapman" (please... this belongs on a cake)
 * "The history... is still being written"
 * "There will be other competitions" (see Template:Prophecy)
 * "... and, hopefully, many more Gold Medals"
 * "... continue to delight... with their magnificent harmonies"
 * "... Perhaps their 1996 release says it best..." ("Perhaps" should be a huge red flag)

Yes, the Vocal Majority is a truly great group (see, I can say it on the talk page, just not in the article itself); I have enjoyed a couple of their recordings, and I learned my first batch of a cappella-singing wisdom from a former VM member. So it's nice to see a big, reasonably comprehensive Wikipedia article written about the group.

But, still, this article needs to be cleaned up so that it looks more like an encyclopedia entry than a signature in someone's yearbook ("VM 4EVER!").

While you're at it, there are a few other cleanup items to be fixed incidentally (e.g, it's not good style to spell album titles IN ALL CAPS), but the informality / POV problems need to be addressed first.

Mlibby 20:57, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, I'll move the tags back to the top of the article, because the point was to grab an editor's attention on an article that is otherwise being ignored. Please, someone fix this article.  Mlibby 20:59, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, a Google search reveals that there's a good reason it sounds like an ad: It's stolen from one. Someone appears to have created a MAJOR copyvio problem by ripping off large segments of material from the cached version of this page (no longer online): The Vocal Majority, Sony/BMG copyright 2006. I found it by doing a Google Advanced Search using one of the suspicious phrases from the article and the term "Vocal Majority" in quotes. Then I chose the cached version of the site. So now we have a problem of needing to do a major edit to sift out the factual and encyclopedic information. I hate to remove the whole history section, but from what I can tell, it's ripped off from start to finish. If no one else offers a suggestion within the next 24 hours, I'll be back to remove the whole thing. Then we can work from the history page. Argh. --Lawikitejana 08:53, 23 September 2006 (UTC) longtime VM fan but never a copyvio fan at all


 * It's one month later, and it's time for the history section to be yanked as discussed. I'll go ahead and do it.  Sorry to be removing the two new section headers ("Performing" and "Ron Chapman") that you just created, Strongbad1982, but the content to which you attached them was due for the chop, and it was posted here.
 * I'll also remove the "inappropriate tone" and "advert" tags, since most of the offending content is now gone. There's still at least one minor tone problem (in "Director" section: "...reputation is a relection of the man...").
 * I'm not qualified to write up replacement content for the removed section(s), so someone else (Lawikitejana?) who knows about them will have to do it. Sorry. Mlibby 00:55, 27 October 2006 (UTC)


 * By the way, here's a link that works (presently) for the page from which the copyvio material came: http://www.sonybmgmasterworks.com/artists/thevocalmajority/index.html Mlibby 01:20, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Jim Clancy
I assume that the Jim Clancy mentioned in this article is the same Jim Clancy who is known for singing the basso profondo parts in many jingles...? (It would make sense, since the jingle business has long been based in Dallas.) 121a0012 (talk) 21:35, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Jim Clancy is well known in Barbershop circles as having his day job writing and singing jingles. 142.150.208.11 (talk) 14:44, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Request for Comment: New WikiProject for A Cappella-related articles
Hi there! To any and all interested: I've proposed a WikiProject dedicated to a cappella. This would be a group of editors interested in improving the quality of articles related to a cappella. If you're passionate about a cappella—ranging from the Pentatonix to groups like Vocal Majority, or perhaps pop culture representations like Pitch Perfect and The Sing-Off—please check out the proposal and share your thoughts!

Here's a link to the proposal for WikiProject A Cappella.

If you could see yourself contributing to an article related to a cappella (like this one), please consider joining!


 * —Shrinkydinks (talk) 20:14, 8 December 2019 (UTC)